Donna's back in town!

Donna and I have known each other since about 1979. She is one of my dearest friends, if not THE dearest. She lives in San Luis Obispo, California, and was back in Michigan for two weeks on vacation. We were lucky that she could take time out of her busy schedule to visit with us. Richard told me that he loves when Donna visits because I'm so happy. "You guys giggle a lot when she's here and you don't even need alcohol to do that!" I told him that's a sign of a good, true friend.

While she was here we went to see a performance of "Gypsy" starring another really good friend of mine, Rose Randall Warner after having dinner with the family (minus Chelsea :-(( ). Here are some pictures before dinner. Chelsea WAS able to join us before dinner and it just happened to be her birthday.
Above picture, from left: Donna, Chelsea, Sarah, Hannah, Courtney, and moi!!
On Sunday evening we fired up the brick oven for home-made pizza. Yum! Here's Jonah putting together his creation and firing it, minus any hint of a 'wiggle.'

And Donna concocting something vegan.Donna was a good sport and agreed to learn a new game, Settlers of Catan.

My beautiful orchid as it charms us on my dining room table. It has an incredible amount of blooms.

The cuteness next door

There are two little girls that live next door to me that I have adopted as my 'psuedo' granddaughters. They are so incredibly cute and smart and precious. Jordan is 7 years old and Sydney is 3. I love the fact that they feel they can come-and-go as they please at my house and when the weather is nice their parents often find them 'over at Karen's house' when they thought the girls were in their own front yard. Here are a couple of pictures of Sydney taken on Saturday, May 22nd. One of the first things Sydney said was "Karen, I'm hungry." in a some-what shy voice. "Well, what do you feel like eating?" I asked her. "A peanut butter and banana sandwich!" "Okay! I'm glad I have those fixings!"

My almost-grandchild

I had the opportunity to babysit for my daughter Courtney's best friend's baby, Euan. He is so incredibly cute with the most delightful disposition. I had a great time getting him to laugh...no sweeter sound that a child's laughter!

Our summer vacation 2009: Lovesick lock

Our last night on the boat was spent at Lovesick lock.The above plaque reads:
The legend of Lovesick Lake There once was a romantic young Indian who was hopelessly smitten by the beautiful Irish lass Katharine O'Donahue. Rejected, the heart-broken Richard Fawn vowed to languish the rest of his days in solitude. With the plaintive wail of the loon echoing in the morning mist, the forlorn native paddled to a nearby island. Here he pined away for days until his anxious friends discovered him, pathetic and near exhaustion, and prevailed upon him to return home.

Our houseboat docked at Lovesick.
There were a few things different about Lovesick lock compared to the other locks we went through. Lovesick lock was right next to the dam. Also, Lovesick was in between two islands; the wardens must canoe to work.We were able to walk across the dam. On top there was a motor-driven crane that uses timbers to raise and lower the dam. Richard and Jonah were totally in their element checking it out and figuring out how it worked. Isn't it the way it goes - as we were pulling away the next day the warden of the lock was firing it up! I saw the look in Jonah's and Richard's eyes...they SO wanted to stop pulling away and watch but we thought we were under a time constraint so they relinquished their engineering interests.We went for a walk on the other side of the dam. There was a lot of poison ivy so Hannah and I opted to head back to the boat to read but I did get this picture before we turned around. The three of them ended up seeing a mink so I was bummed I didn't continue on.Here we are - lovestruck at Lovesick.The two teenage girls were trying to relay a story to the rest of us while we were playing games and...I don't know, you tell me. I can barely understand them for all their girlie screaming.

A night shot of the red stop light at Lovesick reflecting off the water.

A survey for all you parents out there

I have a question for all you parents out there. We all know that as parents we try to raise our children to be polite, not rude, and show respect. The children that always, or almost always, follow all the rules are the easiest to raise.

Here's my question and it pertains to attending school: Would you prefer to have a child that follows all or most of the rules in school, does ALL their homework on time and gets 'A's nearly all the time OR would you prefer to have a child that stretches the rules, breaking a few here and there; picks and chooses the subjects they want to do well in; and only gets 'A's in those same subjects, just squeaking by in the rest of the subjects?

In order to keep the focus as asked above, let's say that all the kids have learned and practice their manners well and know how to show respect to teachers and students.

I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on this. I have a theory as to the outcome later in life as to the two (out of many, I know) types of personalities I've outlined.